Prepared for circle S studio
Lansing Building Products — Brand Anthem
Pre-production · August 2026

Lansing Building Products — Brand Anthem (Vision 2030)

Every roof secured. Every window set.

Themes, format, and a location-by-location shot list for the September shoot. Built from the current script, the circle S concept decks, the filming schedule, and what we know about each of the three customers.

Locations: Raleigh · Colo. Springs · Danvers
Shoot days: 9 — three 3-day blocks
Window: Sept 1 – Sept 25, 2026
Format: 1.5× anamorphic — DZOFilm Arcana
Aerial: DJI Mavic 3 Pro Cine
Crew: 4-person NC · 3-person remote

01 — The thesis

What this film is actually about

Lansing's competitors are getting bigger and getting bought. Lansing's answer is that a relationship is the one thing scale can't manufacture — and the proof isn't a claim, it's a person who showed up.

Everything below is built around one rule: we never say a theme we can't shoot. Each theme has a location that owns it and a single hero shot that proves it. If we get the six hero shots, the film exists. Everything else is enrichment.

A silhouetted figure alone in an empty, unfinished room — **Theme 01** — the room before anything happens. Stillness as tension. Ref: Egert Milder, “Free Again.”

01Everything stops

“The materials need to show up right — because when they don't — everything stops.”

The opening has to earn the rest of the film by taking the contractor's risk seriously. Not stress-as-decoration — the specific dread of a crew standing around on a day you're paying for. This is the only section with real tension in it, and the edit needs that contrast to make Section 2 land.

Owned byAll three — cut from the empty and unpeopled frames at every location.

Hero shotA job site at first light before anyone arrives. Materials staged, nothing moving, one held wide. Then the identical frame at last light the following day, empty again, with a day and a half of build standing in it. That cut is the section.

Aerial view at sunrise of a single truck on a long road through open country — **Theme 02** — scale from the air, low sun, one moving subject. The Danvers hero move lives here. Ref: Netco, “Built on Power.”

02Not a building. A neighborhood.

“It's not just a building. It's a neighborhood. A community. A home.”

The script escalates through three nouns in about four seconds, so the visuals have to escalate on the same beat — single detail, then street, then the thing that makes it a home. Danvers is the only place on the schedule where all three exist inside one frame, which makes that drone move the most valuable asset of the entire production.

Owned byDanvers — 158 homes in a single development, in every phase at once.

Hero shotOne continuous aerial that travels from bare framing, over housewrap, over a house mid-siding, and lands on a finished home with a car in the driveway. It replaces the scripted time-lapse and it says the whole line without a word.

Theme 03 — the exact geometry of the Wayne and Eric hero shot. Shoulder to shoulder, not face to face. Ref: Red Wing, “Wall of Honor.”

03Someone who'll sit down with you

“You need more than a supplier. You need someone who'll sit down with you. A partner.”

The single most provable claim in the script, and Raleigh hands it to us: Wayne Collins went out to Eric's job sites and showed a 25-year-old how to install product he'd never installed. Two years later Eric employs thirty people. That is the entire brand argument, and it happened to a real person we have on the schedule.

Owned byRaleigh — Eric Bowman & Wayne Collins (OSR).

Hero shotWayne and Eric dropped into a squat beside the work, heads together, backs half to camera, both looking at the same detail. Shot long and from distance so it reads as observed. No handshake, no pointing, no eye contact with us. Scheduled for after Eric's crew has gone, so it gets the one hour of low sun the job site allows.

Theme 04 — a real face, lit by whatever is already there. This is the counter, not a set. Ref: Red Wing, “Wall of Honor.”

04The person behind the counter

“They're not interchangeable. They are the relationship.”

Lansing's own customer research puts the associate ahead of the product as the driver of loyalty, and the script commits to it hard. The risk is that “friendly counter staff” is the most clichéd image in B2B video. The fix is to shoot recognition rather than greeting — the half-second where someone looks up and knows who just walked in, before any performance starts.

Owned byAll three branches — and it must be a different associate each time.

Hero shotLong lens from behind the counter line. An associate glances up mid-task and their face changes. Roll before the customer is through the door and don't call action.

Extreme macro of building material texture raked by low light — **Theme 05** — product shot like it matters. Note: this is diopter territory on the Arcanas. Ref: Maxbo, “Made to Last.”

05We don't collect vendors

“We build partnerships — the kind where both sides sit down and ask: where are we going?”

The weakest-covered section in the current plan and the easiest to fix. Every customer on the schedule is defined by a premium brand: Eric by Renaissance, the DiBiases by CertainTeed, Junior by his Andersen premier certification. The brands aren't set dressing here — they're why these three chose Lansing. Shoot the products as objects worth caring about.

Owned byDanvers, if we can get the CertainTeed rep on site. Otherwise product macro at all three.

Hero shotA three-way on site: the DiBiase sisters, the branch manager, and the CertainTeed rep looking at the same wall. That's the only frame in the film where the partnership chain is visible end to end.

Hands on a steering wheel inside a truck cab, dashboard lit — **Theme 06** — the order is placed and he keeps moving. Technology as relief, not as a screen. Ref: BEI Construction, “Concept Creation.”

06It doesn't replace a handshake. It powers it.

“We use innovation to strengthen our foundation, so we can focus entirely on what truly matters: you.”

Colorado is the technology lane, but it has to be shot as relief rather than as software. What Junior actually values is that ordering is easy and that Lansing sends him someone who understands his altitude and wind problems. The feeling to capture is a man who does not have to drive back to the branch — not a screen recording.

Owned byColorado Springs — Junior Oros. See flag 03 before shooting this.

Hero shotJunior on a ladder or at the opening, phone to his ear, Front Range behind him, and then he just keeps working. The order is placed and nothing stopped. Late light, long lens, no screen in frame.

02 — The shot list

Location by location

Grouped by shoot day and sequence. Chips mark what each shot needs from the schedule: gold is light-dependent and drives the call sheet, green marks the Raleigh hours when Eric's crews are actually on site, and the inverted Diopter chip flags shots that can't be reached on bare anamorphic glass — section 03 explains why.

Golden Dawn or last 90 min. Non-negotiable window.

Controlled Interior or lit. Midday work.

Crew hours Raleigh only — crews on site 7:45a–5p.

Diopter Beyond Arcana close focus — see 03.

Macro Drone 120fps Long lens Technique.

A man alone at a kitchen window before dawn, silhouetted against grey light — **Raleigh, Day 2 Sequence D** — alone, early, before anyone else is moving. With the family scene gone, this quiet register transfers to Eric and his truck. Ref: So-Loki, “Athletes World.”

Raleigh, NC

SEPT 2–4 · WED–FRI · TRAVEL IN 9/1 · HOME 9/5

Eric Bowman, Elite Xteriors — outdoor living, decks, porches, Renaissance. Started the business two years ago at 23; thirty employees now at 25. Wayne Collins (OSR) went out to his sites and taught his crew to install. New branch, looks great. Owns theme 03. This is the emotional center of the film and the block with the most crew.

Eric is available for both of the first two days, and we can move between multiple job sites — which lets us cover three different build stages instead of watching one deck get slightly further along.

BRANCH — Caleb Upchurch (BM) · Angela (ISR) · Wayne Collins (OSR) · Egan Baker (Ops) · Chris Anastasio (Whse) | CREW — 4-person, Evan AC | 10-HR DAYS + 30 MIN LUNCH OFF THE CLOCK = 10.5 HRS FROM CALL | STANDING RULE: NO CALL BEFORE 6:00A

Three days, three jobs. Wednesday is the job sites and the crew — a full crew day across two sites, 6:00a to 4:30p. Thursday is Eric — a split day that opens with him driving to work in the dark, covers the site as time allows, puts the interview at midday, and comes back at 4:30 for the hero moment with Wayne in golden hour. Friday is the branch.

The constraint shaping all three: Eric's crews are on site 7:45a to 5p and will not stay later, and sunrise is 6:52 with sunset at 7:44. A continuous ten-hour day therefore reaches dawn or dusk, never both, and never a crew in either. Thursday's split is what buys us both ends of the light on the day that needs them. Everything flat and midday belongs to the interview or to macro, where the sun is irrelevant. See flag 11.

DAY 1 — Wed 9/2Call 6:00a · wrap 4:30p · the job sites and the crew · two sites

A — The site before the crew ● 6 – 7:45A

Sunrise is 6:52, so a 6:00a call gives roughly fifty minutes of pre-dawn and blue hour before the sun clears, then the best light of the day until the crew lands at 7:45. Nobody on site, which is exactly what theme 01 needs — and better empty than staged. Shoot RAL 1.1 at the site we return to on Thursday evening: a day and a half of progress between the two frames reads far better than a single day's. Prefer an unoccupied site if Eric has one — even a 6:00a call at a house with a family asleep inside is a lot to ask.

RAL 1.1HERO — THEME 01. Locked-off wide of the site at first light. Materials staged, nothing moving, no one in frame. Hold 20 seconds. Mark this framing precisely — RAL 7.10 has to match it exactly.GoldenLocked off
RAL 1.2The house itself pre-dawn, the half-built deck against it. Wide, held, no one in it.GoldenLocked off
RAL 1.3The street with the site on it, empty. The “before” frame at neighborhood scale.GoldenLocked off
RAL 1.4First light raking across decking boards and framing. Grain, texture, long shadows off the joists. Slow slide.GoldenMacroDiopter
RAL 1.5Staged material in low sun — banded Renaissance boards, fastener boxes, a stack of joists. Product as object, and the only hour it will look like this.GoldenMacroDiopter
RAL 1.6Tools and a saw horse waiting, dew on the blade. Stillness with tension in it.GoldenMacroDiopter
RAL 1.7Aerial establishing of the site and the street in low sun, before anyone is in it. The neighborhood the deck sits in.GoldenDrone
RAL 1.8Crew trucks pulling in around 7:45 — the day starting for real, and the last usable minutes of the good light. Long lens, no direction.GoldenLong lens

A hand driving an impact driver into timber framing, low sun behind — **Raleigh, Sequence B** — the macro battery. At this distance overhead sun is irrelevant, which is why it owns the middle of the day. Ref: 84 Lumber, “The Journey.”

B — Site 1, the build ● 7:45A – 12P

The heart of Wednesday, and the crew is the subject. Flat, high sun for most of it — fight it by getting close and using the structure: shoot into open shade, let the framing block and shape, look for the shafts between joists. The macro battery loses nothing here, so bank as much of it as the morning allows. The first half hour, before the sun gets up, is the warmest light we will ever have a crew in.

Eric will be on site and Wayne will most likely be too. Treat any Eric-and-Wayne interaction as a bonus — grab it if it happens, and use it to learn how the two of them behave together, but the hero version is scheduled for Thursday's golden hour and the day should not be built around it.

RAL 2.1Establishing wide — deck and porch framing with the crew moving through it. Shoot from shade and expose for the structure, not the sky.Crew hours
RAL 2.2Morning crew huddle. Eric talking through the day. 100ft on the long end — we want the shape of it, not the words.Crew hoursLong lens
RAL 2.3Macro battery: chalk line snapping, pencil mark on a joist, speed square set, bit seating a screw, hidden fastener clicking home. Each its own take.MacroDiopter
RAL 2.4Miter cut with a sawdust plume. Find the one angle where the sun backlights the dust — usually shooting back toward it through the cut. 120fps.Macro120fpsDiopter
RAL 2.5Two crew carry a long board together in one unbroken move. Collaboration without a handshake — the deck explicitly bans the handshake.Crew hours
RAL 2.6Hands checking level on the railing. Bubble in macro, then up to the face reading it.MacroDiopter
RAL 2.7ERIC TEACHES — THEME 03, COMPLETED. Eric showing a younger crew member how to do something, hands on the material. Shoot it in the same geometry as RAL 7.3 — squatting, shoulder to shoulder, observed from distance. Wayne taught Eric two years ago; this is the lesson passed on, and it closes the circle the script only half states.Crew hoursLong lens
RAL 2.8Held portraits of four or five crew against the build. Open shade, never direct sun — these have to cut against the Red Wing treatment from the other locations, and Wednesday is where we get them.Crew hoursPortrait
RAL 2.9Crew hands in extreme CU — taped fingers, gloves, a scarred knuckle. The faces of thirty employees made specific.MacroDiopter
RAL 2.10Eric working alongside his crew, hands on the material rather than supervising. He is still a tradesman who happens to employ thirty people.Crew hoursLong lens

C — Site 2, a different stage ● 12:45 – 4:30P · LUNCH 12–12:30

The second site is the thing one location can't give us. Ask Eric in advance to pick sites at different stages — ideally one being framed and one where decking and railing are going down. Different geometry, different street, different product state, all inside the same customer story. The crew is still the subject here.

RAL 3.1Establishing wide of site 2, deliberately different geometry from RAL 2.1 — different roofline, different approach, so the two don't read as the same house.Crew hours
RAL 3.2Renaissance decking going down — boards set, spacing checked, hidden fasteners clicking home. The product doing the job it is sold for.MacroDiopter
RAL 3.3Railing, posts or pergola assembly — verticals going up and the shape of the finished thing appearing for the first time.Crew hours
RAL 3.4Second macro battery on different material — composite against wood grain, end cuts, colour, water beading if we wet it down. Stop down so it reads.MacroDiopter
RAL 3.5A crew member alone in the work — absorbed, unaware of us. The counterpart to the huddle, and the frame that says craft rather than labour.Crew hoursLong lens
RAL 3.6Crew portraits at site 2 — different faces, different backdrop from RAL 2.8.Crew hoursPortrait
RAL 3.7Wide from across the street: house, deck, crew, truck. The “a job sitting in a neighborhood” frame, and Raleigh's contribution to theme 02.Crew hoursLong lens
RAL 3.8Crew packing out at the end of the day — tools loaded, offcuts swept, trucks pulling away. Bookends RAL 1.8 and closes the working day.Crew hoursLong lens

DAY 2 — Thu 9/3SPLIT DAY · Eric's day · call 6:00a → out 12:30p · back 4:30p → wrap 8:00p

How the split works. Block one runs 6:00a to 12:30p (6.5 hrs). We leave set and the clock stops for four hours. Block two runs 4:30p to 8:00p (3.5 hrs). Ten hours on the clock, with the long break covering the meal.

This is the best-shaped day of the Raleigh block because it is the only one that reaches both ends of the light, and it belongs to Eric from end to end — the drive in the dark, arriving at his own job site, the interview, and then Wayne at golden hour.

D — The drive, and the man who drives it ● 6 – 7:45A

This replaces the family-on-the-deck open, which is no longer available. It is the better scene anyway — it humanises Eric as a contractor rather than as a generic family man, and every frame is specific to a 25-year-old running thirty people out of a pickup. The block splits naturally at sunrise: 6:00–6:50 is the dark cab, where the interior details and the coffee stop live, and 6:50–7:45 is the low sun for the road, the aerial and the arrival. Scout the route beforehand rather than following wherever he happens to drive.

RAL 4.1Coffee stop before sunrise — gas station or drive-through, the small ritual every contractor has. Long lens from across the lot, lit by whatever is there.GoldenLong lens
RAL 4.2Truck interior as character, still dark: cut lists and receipts on the dash, hard hat on the passenger seat, gloves, a tape measure in the cup holder. Insert series — this is his office.MacroDiopter
RAL 4.3Dashboard glow on his face before the sun is up. The quietest frame in the film.Long lens
RAL 4.4The day's schedule on his phone in the cradle, or a cut list on the seat beside him. What thirty people are doing today, on one screen.MacroDiopter
RAL 4.5Elite Xteriors decal on the truck door. His name, his company, at 25. Low sun raking the vinyl once it clears.GoldenMacroDiopter
RAL 4.6Hands on the wheel — ring, sawdust in the knuckles, low sun across the back of the hand.GoldenMacroDiopter
RAL 4.7Eric driving, profile, face lit by dawn through the side glass. Long lens from the back seat. Roll long and don't talk to him.GoldenLong lens
RAL 4.8Over-shoulder through the windshield into low sun. This is where the anamorphic flare earns its keep.Golden
RAL 4.9A call taken from the truck — a customer, a supplier, a crew lead. Running a business from a vehicle at seven in the morning.GoldenLong lens
RAL 4.10Aerial: single truck on a two-lane road through NC pine, low sun. The 84 Lumber “Journey” frame.GoldenDrone
RAL 4.11Truck into the site. Camera low and behind the rear wheel, gravel throwing.Golden
RAL 4.12Tailgate down. Boots laced on the tailgate, tool belt on, coffee finished and set aside. The ritual of starting.GoldenMacroDiopter
RAL 4.13Eric walks the site before the crew arrives — reading yesterday's work, checking a joist, deciding the order of the day. Long lens, observed, no direction. He gets there first: that fact is the character note.GoldenLong lens
RAL 4.14His hands in extreme CU — calluses, a scar, a split nail, sawdust in the creases. Contractor hands at 25. Cut-match against the associate hands at RAL 8.9.MacroDiopter
RAL 4.15CU his face, first light, looking at the day ahead. Direct him only to think. Roll two minutes. Long end, face centered.GoldenLong lens

E — Job site, as time allows ● 7:45 – 10A

Two and a quarter hours with the crew on site, and the light is still low for the first half hour of it. Build this list from Wednesday's rushes the night before — by now we know which details actually cut and which faces are worth going back for. If Wednesday ran clean, this time goes to Eric on site instead.

RAL 5.1Eric with the crew as the day starts — the huddle, the hand-off, the first cut. Warmest light we will get with a crew in frame, so spend the first half hour here.GoldenCrew hours
RAL 5.2Whatever Wednesday's macro battery missed or didn't land. Diopters already built and tested.MacroDiopter
RAL 5.3A stage we haven't covered — demo, layout, footings, or the very first board going down. The beginning of a build, which Wednesday's two sites may not have offered.Crew hours
RAL 5.4Second chance at Eric teaches (RAL 2.7) if Wednesday didn't produce it. Same geometry as the hero shot. Worth chasing twice; it closes theme 03's circle.Crew hoursLong lens
RAL 5.5Eric with a homeowner if one is on site and willing — the other end of the relationship chain, and the only place in the film we see his customer.Crew hoursLong lens

F — The interview ● 10A – 12P · TWO HOURS

Two hours, and it sits here for a reason: the day's worst light is the interview's least important variable. Shoot in open shade or inside so the flat overhead sun never enters frame. Two bodies — FX6 on the mid for the usable frame, FX3 on the long end living on eyes, mouth and hands. Wrap out by 12:30.

RAL 6.1Interview A-cam, chest-up, negative space camera-left for lower thirds if they're ever used.Controlled
RAL 6.2Interview B-cam, extreme CU. Eyes, the pause before an answer, the hands he doesn't know he's using. Watch for flare streaking the eyeline.ControlledLong lens
RAL 6.3Between takes: adjusting, laughing, resetting. Keep rolling through the reset — usually the best material of the day.Controlled
RAL 6.4SECTION 7 BUTTON. Held portrait, direct to camera, ten full seconds, no dialogue. Red Wing “Wall of Honor” treatment. Long end, centered.ControlledPortrait

Interview to chase: the hundred mornings he didn't know how to quote a job he'd never done. What Wayne actually did, in specifics, on which job. The moment he realized Lansing was different. What it feels like to be responsible for thirty paychecks at 25. And the porch he built for free for a disabled neighbor — get the story on camera, decide about using it later, and don't shoot at her home without a proper ask and her consent.

G — Back for golden hour: Eric and Wayne ● 4:30 – 8P · THE HERO MOMENT

Three and a half hours built around one shot. We arrive while the crew is still finishing; from 5pm the site is ours, and from 6:15 the light is the light the whole moodboard is built on. Choose the site that is furthest along — it has to serve as the hero location and the finished-work beauty frames both, and there is no time to move. Brief Wayne and Eric to work a real problem, not to demonstrate one. No handshakes, no pointing at buildings.

RAL 7.1Wayne's truck arriving at the site. He comes to Eric — that direction is the whole point.Golden
RAL 7.2The two of them walking out to the work together, talking. The approach, before they settle.GoldenLong lens
RAL 7.3HERO — THEME 03. Both men dropped into a squat beside the work, heads together over the same detail, backs half to camera. Long, from distance, observed. Give it a full hour; it is the most important thirty seconds in the Raleigh block.GoldenLong lens
RAL 7.4OTS onto the sample or spec sheet. Hands indicating a detail — hands may point, people may not. Stop down so it reads.MacroDiopter
RAL 7.5Reverse pair: CU Eric listening, CU Wayne explaining. Shoot both on the same lens so they cut clean.GoldenLong lens
RAL 7.6Wayne physically demonstrating an install move, hands on the material. The literal proof of the claim the whole film rests on. Get it three ways.MacroDiopter
RAL 7.7Extreme wide from 150ft — the two of them small, the build filling the frame behind. “They came out to me.”GoldenLong lens
RAL 7.8The finished portion of the deck in low sun. The payoff for every flat-light frame we shot on Wednesday, and the closest Raleigh gets to the moodboard.Golden
RAL 7.9Renaissance product detail in low sun — grain, colour, water beading if we wet it down. Shoot as product, not as b-roll.GoldenMacroDiopter
RAL 7.10HERO — THEME 01, THE “AFTER”. The site empty again at last light. Match RAL 1.1 exactly. Wednesday's dawn-empty cut to Thursday's dusk-empty, with a day and a half of build between them, says the whole section without a crew in either frame.GoldenLocked off
RAL 7.11Eric alone, looking at the finished section. The thinking frame, and the one that pays off RAL 4.15.GoldenLong lens
RAL 7.12Eric's Section 7 portrait outdoors in low sun — a warmer alternative to RAL 6.4 so the edit can choose. Wayne's too, while we have him.GoldenPortrait
RAL 7.13Aerial: rise-and-reveal over the pine treeline at the edge of the lot, disclosing the deck and the house in low sun. Raleigh's version of the move. Fly this before 7:15 — it needs light, not dusk.GoldenDrone
RAL 7.14Blue hour, 7:45–8:00: porch light coming on, the finished deck lit and in use, the house settling into evening. Raleigh's contribution to the closing “a home” beats, and the last frame of the block.GoldenMacroDiopter

DAY 3 — Fri 9/4Call 6:00a · wrap 4:30p · the branch · 2 shooters

H — The branch wakes up ● 6A – 12P

Call is 6:00a to keep a ten-hour turnaround off Thursday's 8pm wrap; sunrise is 6:52, so the pre-dawn exterior is still comfortably in hand. Split the two shooters: one on the graphic warehouse material, one on faces. This is our best-looking branch, so shoot the wides here that we'll need to cover Danvers. Confirm the actual open time with Caleb before the call sheet is cut — the branch keeps its own hours and is not tied to Eric's crews.

RAL 8.1Branch exterior pre-dawn, interior lights on, gate opening. This is the “before” frame for the whole company.Golden
RAL 8.2Associates arriving in real time. Long lens, from the car, no direction. Time this to the branch's genuine open, whatever Caleb confirms it to be.GoldenLong lens
RAL 8.3Forklift working in shafts of light through the bay door, dust in the beam. Multiple angles — the signature warehouse image, and the one place the anamorphic flare should be allowed to run.Controlled
RAL 8.4Racking as graphic rhythm — siding profiles, shingle bundles, repetition down a long aisle. Slow dolly.Controlled
RAL 8.5Macro: shrink wrap tearing, scanner reading a barcode, a hand sliding a bundle, gloves gripping.ControlledMacroDiopter
RAL 8.6Caleb walking the yard talking with the warehouse team — shot from outside through the open doorway. That framing is already in the concept deck.ControlledLong lens
RAL 8.7Delivery truck loading, driver's hands on the wheel, truck rolling out the gate into sunrise.Golden
RAL 8.8Counter at open — the genuine first customer of the day. Whoever walks in.ControlledLong lens
RAL 8.9Associate hands in extreme CU — worn, taped, gloved. Cut-match fodder against Eric's hands from RAL 4.14.MacroDiopter
RAL 8.10Held portraits of Caleb, Angela, Wayne, Egan and Chris against the racking. Same treatment as RAL 6.4.ControlledPortrait

I — The branch through the day ● 12:30 – 4:30P · LUNCH 12–12:30

A ten-and-a-half-hour day reaches the branch opening or the branch closing, not both, and the opening is worth more — so the blue-hour bookend is gone and the afternoon has to earn its keep instead. This is where we bank the branch material that Danvers, with its poor-looking branch and two short days, will need us to already have.

RAL 9.1Counter traffic across the afternoon — three or four different customers, three or four different associates. Theme 04 needs variety and this is the only branch where we have the hours for it.ControlledLong lens
RAL 9.2Will-call and order pickup — tickets, the board, names being called, a contractor loading his own truck.ControlledMacroDiopter
RAL 9.3Yard load-outs through the afternoon, backlit through the open bay. Multiple angles to build the RAL 8.3 rhythm into a real sequence.Controlled
RAL 9.4Product and racking wides Danvers cannot give us — long aisles, siding profiles, depth. Cheap insurance for the edit.Controlled
RAL 9.5Sweep-up: any Section 7 portrait, counter beat or macro insert the three days lost. Build this list at lunch, not at 3pm.ControlledDiopter

A worker in a dust-filled room lit by a single bright window — **Colorado, Sequence C** — the window as the light source and the subject. COS 3.5 is the payoff of this idea. Ref: Zoopla, “Power Tools.”

Colorado Springs, CO

SEPT 15–17 · TUE–THU · TRAVEL IN 9/15 · HOME 9/18

Junior Oros, Oros Home Enhancements — window and door replacement, Andersen premier contractor. Left Lansing, came back, now a major account because the sales team kept showing up. Altitude and wind drive product problems nobody else solves for him. Branch looks good and has mountains behind it. Owns theme 06.

BRANCH — Jason Robey (BM) · Robert (Ops) · Andrew (Whse Sup) · Dylan (Whse Mgr) | CREW — 3-person | NOTE: travel home moved to 9/18, so 9/17 is a full second shoot day · airspace is restrictive, see flag 09

DAY 1 — Tue 9/15Travel, arrival plates, interview if the day allows

A — Arrival plates + interview

We land mid-day and the light doesn't get good until late afternoon, which happens to be exactly when the interview should be. Bank the establishing material on the way in. With 9/17 now a full day, the interview no longer has to happen today — if the flight slips or Junior's schedule moves, it rolls to Thursday rather than getting rushed into bad light on a travel day.

COS 1.1Front Range plates from a vista on the drive in. Two or three, late afternoon, long lens compression.GoldenLong lens
COS 1.2Interview A-cam — Junior at his shop or on site with the range behind, thrown well out of focus. Anamorphic falloff earns its money here.Golden
COS 1.3Interview B-cam extreme CU. Same discipline as Raleigh — long end, centered.Long lens
COS 1.4SECTION 7 BUTTON. Held direct-to-camera portrait, ten seconds.GoldenPortrait

Interview to chase: why he left Lansing, and what brought him back. What “they sent me someone who could handle my specific issues” actually looked like — which product, which failure, which person. What an Andersen premier certification costs him in reputation if a job goes wrong. And the line the script is already reaching for: his clients trust him with their home, so he needs a partner he trusts the same way.

DAY 2 — Wed 9/16Jobsite + branch

B — Mountain morning

The aerial block. Confirm authorizations before we travel and expect shorter batteries at altitude — fly the priority move first, not last. 9/17 now gives us a second sunrise, so treat this morning as the one that banks the safe version and Thursday as the one that goes for the better take.

COS 2.1Aerial sunrise on the Front Range, descending to reveal the neighborhood and then the house. 24mm for the wide; switch to the 166mm for a compressed range behind the rooftops.GoldenDrone
COS 2.2Junior's truck on the road with mountains behind — the Colorado answer to RAL 4.10, deliberately rhyming.GoldenDrone
COS 2.3Ladder coming off the rack, window unit unwrapped, boots on the drive. Insert series.GoldenMacroDiopter

Extreme close-up of a hand and a power tool with a hard practical light source — **Colorado, Sequence C detail** — the install macro battery. Every one of these sits inside minimum focus. Ref: Maxbo, “Made to Last.”

C — The window goes in

The single richest macro opportunity on the whole schedule, and the one place we can shoot a literal script line — every window set. Budget three hours minimum, and have the diopters built before we start.

COS 3.1Old unit coming out. Shoot the open hole in the wall — a house briefly vulnerable. Wide and locked.Controlled
COS 3.2Two people carrying the new Andersen unit, silhouetted against the opening from inside.Controlled
COS 3.3Setting the unit: shim tapped, level laid on, bubble in macro. Follow the whole action once unbroken before breaking it up.MacroDiopter
COS 3.4Macro battery: caulk bead laid, flashing tape rolled down, screw driven, the Andersen badge. Each its own take.MacroDiopter
COS 3.5HERO — THEME 05 / SCRIPT LINE. Interior looking out through the new glass at the mountains. The product frames the view. Bounce inside, expose for outside, take your time. Best single frame available in Colorado, and the widest anamorphic focal that holds the window square.Controlled
COS 3.6Someone standing at the new window looking out — the homeowner if they're willing and released, otherwise Junior. Silhouette, from behind.Controlled
COS 3.7Junior's last wipe of the glass. Literal cover for “who stays until it's right.”MacroDiopter

D — Ordering, honestly

Read flag 03 first. Junior is not on LansingNOW. Shoot what's true about how he actually orders, and shoot the platform separately at the branch so the edit has both and neither is a lie.

COS 4.1HERO — THEME 06. Junior on the phone to the branch from the opening, mountains behind, then he goes straight back to work. Nothing stopped.GoldenLong lens
COS 4.2Measurements scrawled on a scrap, then photographed on his phone. The unglamorous truth of a custom order.MacroDiopter
COS 4.3Texting the ISR, thumbs in macro, glare of high-altitude sun on the screen.GoldenMacroDiopter
COS 4.4Platform coverage — shot at the branch, on an associate's screen, as a real order being entered. Macro on the confirmation. Shoot at 1/48 and check for refresh banding.ControlledMacroDiopter

E — Colorado Springs branch

The only branch on the schedule with mountains behind the yard. Get the exterior we can't get anywhere else.

COS 5.1Branch exterior wide with the range behind the yard. Late light. Unique to this location — don't leave without it.Golden
COS 5.2Junior and Jason Robey leaning over a spec at the counter. Same rules as RAL 7.3 — shoulder to shoulder, not face to face.ControlledLong lens
COS 5.3Counter recognition beat — a different associate, a different energy than Raleigh. Theme 04, second variation.ControlledLong lens
COS 5.4His custom unit staged in the warehouse with his name on the wrap. Macro on the label.ControlledMacroDiopter
COS 5.5Window and door racks — glass reflections, the long aisle, light bouncing. Different graphic character than Raleigh's siding racks.Controlled
COS 5.6Held portraits: Jason, Robert, Andrew, Dylan.ControlledPortrait

DAY 3 — Thu 9/17Full second day · travel home 9/18

F — The second sunrise ● NEW — THE EXTRA DAY

The schedule change buys us this, and it lands on exactly the right shot. The Front Range aerial is the reason Colorado is on the schedule, and altitude, wind and airspace all conspire against getting it first time. Wednesday is the rehearsal. This is the take.

COS 6.1Second run at the hero sunrise aerial — descending from the range to reveal the neighborhood, then the house. Fly the line you learned Wednesday, slower and lower.GoldenDrone
COS 6.2Rise-and-reveal: start below the roofline behind a stand of trees, ascend and pitch down to disclose the Front Range behind the development. The Colorado version of RAL 7.13.GoldenDrone
COS 6.3166mm compression from the air — range stacked hard behind the rooftops. The frame no ground lens in this package can reach.GoldenDrone
COS 6.4Ground-level golden hour on the finished window from outside — low sun raking the new glass. The exterior answer to COS 3.5.GoldenLong lens

G — Backstops and second passes

Everything on this list was previously a gamble on a single day. Build the running order at dinner on Wednesday, in priority sequence, so the morning doesn't get spent deciding.

COS 7.1Junior's full interview if it didn't happen Tuesday — A-cam, B-cam extreme CU, the whole setup, in late afternoon light rather than squeezed onto a travel day.Golden
COS 7.2Section 7 button portrait, ten seconds direct to camera, if not already landed.GoldenPortrait
COS 7.3Branch material that lost out to the job site on Wednesday — Jason, Robert, Andrew and Dylan's portraits, the window and door racks, the counter recognition beat.ControlledPortrait
COS 7.4Second pass on the install macro battery, now that we know from Wednesday's rushes which details actually cut. Diopters already built.MacroDiopter
COS 7.5Branch exterior with the range behind the yard (COS 5.1) if Wednesday's light failed. This is the one frame Colorado owns outright — don't fly home without it.Golden

Scaffolding and a worker silhouetted against a pale sky, strong graphic structure — **Danvers, Sequence B** — scaffold as graphic structure. The siding crew was rescheduled for us; use it properly. Ref: 84 Lumber, “The Journey.”

Danvers / Salem, MA

SEPT 23–24 · WED–THU · TRAVEL + SCOUT 9/22 · HOME 9/25

Chanelle & Diandra DiBiase, DiBiase Companies — third-generation community developers, 158 homes going into a new subdivision. Father and brother in the business too. On a texting basis with branch manager Taylor Vigue; heavy CertainTeed users, close to the rep. They rearranged their build schedule so we'd have a house being sided this week. Owns themes 02 and 05. The branch itself does not look good — plan around it.

BRANCH — Taylor Vigue (BM) · Chuck (Ops) · Derek (Whse Mgr) | CREW — 3-person | NOTE: Chanelle has a closing 9/24, unavailable until 11:30 · two shoot days only, and the hero aerial sits on the first — see flag 10

SCOUT — Tue 9/22 PMArrive and use the light

DAN 0.1Scout the development at golden hour and shoot the establishing plates that same evening. Free coverage — the light won't wait for the call sheet.Golden
DAN 0.2Fly the site to plan the Day 1 hero move — find the exact line that passes through every construction phase in one pass, and confirm it doesn't take us over anyone.DroneRecce

DAY 1 — Wed 9/23Split day — sunrise aerial, siding crew, the sisters, the delivery

A — Scale ● THE HERO MOMENT — ONE MORNING ONLY

One development containing framing, housewrap, siding-in-progress and finished homes at the same moment. Nothing else on the schedule can say “a neighborhood, a community, a home” in a single continuous take. Give it a full hour at sunrise and fly it more than once within that hour — because under the revised plan this is the only sunrise Danvers gets. The second morning that used to back it up is gone. Read flag 10 before the call sheet is locked.

DAN 1.1HERO — THEME 02. One unbroken aerial travelling bare framing → housewrap → house mid-siding → finished home with a car in the drive. 24mm, low, slow, forward. This replaces the scripted time-lapse in Section 6.GoldenDrone
DAN 1.2The same progression compressed — long lens down the row from the ground, and again from the air on the 70mm. Phases stacking behind each other.GoldenLong lensDrone
DAN 1.3High wide of the full development, static, held. The Section 6 pull-back.GoldenDrone
DAN 1.4Empty street before the crews arrive. Theme 01 again, at neighborhood scale.GoldenLocked off

B — The siding crew

They rearranged construction for us — use it properly. This is our CertainTeed product showcase and our cover for “every house needs to be sided.”

DAN 2.1Wide: scaffold up the gable, crew moving in rhythm across it.Golden
DAN 2.2A long panel carried by two, flexing under its own weight. 120fps.120fps
DAN 2.3Macro battery: course locking into the one below, nail gun firing, chalk line, J-channel, panel edge catching sun. The lock-and-click at 120fps.Macro120fpsDiopter
DAN 2.4Low angle straight up the wall as courses rise. Repeat as the day progresses for a real before/after.Golden
DAN 2.5Matched pair: bare housewrap wall, then fully sided wall, identical framing. A hard cut that does the work of a time-lapse.GoldenLocked off
DAN 2.6CertainTeed product detail — profile, color, texture, the stamp. Shoot it as product, stopped down.MacroDiopter

C — The sisters

They're a pair, and the two-shot is the point — a family business is the visual rhyme with Lansing's own family ownership. Interview in the model home. Two people in one anamorphic frame is exactly what the format is good at, but keep both faces off the edges.

DAN 3.1Interview two-shot, both in frame, model home interior. Let them interrupt and finish each other — don't separate them for tidiness.Controlled
DAN 3.2Singles on each, plus the extreme CU pass.ControlledLong lens
DAN 3.3The two of them walking a street with a plan set, phones going, subs moving around them. Long lens, no direction, let it be chaotic.GoldenLong lens
DAN 3.4Hands on a schedule, red pen, lot numbers. The visual of “a delivery two days late costs us weeks.”MacroDiopter
DAN 3.5Office whiteboard of lots and delivery dates. Wide, then macro on a date being changed.ControlledMacroDiopter
DAN 3.6ASK FOR THIS. Their father and/or brother on site with them. Three generations in one frame is the strongest available image of family-owned serving family-owned. Request in advance — it won't happen spontaneously.Golden
DAN 3.7Section 7 button portraits, both sisters, together and separately.ControlledPortrait

Interview to chase: what their grandfather started and what they inherited. What a two-day-late delivery actually does to a 158-home schedule. What it means that they text the branch manager rather than call an 800 number. Why they route their builders through Lansing when they don't have to. And the distinction the script is after — Lansing doesn't drop product and leave, they sequence with the build.

D — The delivery

The literal proof of “they coordinate with us, they sequence with us.” Arrange a real drop during our window — this doesn't work as a staged truck.

DAN 4.1Lansing truck turning into the development. Aerial follow if the light holds and the flight line stays clear of people.GoldenDrone
DAN 4.2Conveyor or boom placing bundles exactly where they're needed, at the right house, in the right order.Golden
DAN 4.3Driver and site super working out placement together. Shoulder to shoulder over a plan.Long lens
DAN 4.4Macro: delivery ticket, signature, strap cut, bundle settling.MacroDiopter

DAY 2 — Thu 9/24Branch AM (no sisters until 11:30) · lunch · finished homes at golden hour

E — Branch, shot around its condition

The branch doesn't photograph well. So don't photograph the branch — photograph the people in it. Tight, low, backlit, available light through the bay door. No wide exteriors, no clean establishing shot. Use the Raleigh branch wides for anything the edit needs; nobody will know the difference.

DAN 5.1Counter recognition beat — third and final variation of theme 04. Tight, long lens, faces only.ControlledLong lens
DAN 5.2Bay door light — silhouettes working against the opening. Turns a weakness into the look, and it's the best flare opportunity in the building.Controlled
DAN 5.3Warehouse racking in macro and half-frame fragments rather than wides. Texture over architecture.ControlledMacroDiopter
DAN 5.4Held portraits: Taylor, Chuck, Derek. Against dark racking, one source.ControlledPortrait
DAN 5.5Blue-hour exterior if we want any establishing at all — darkness is the friend here.Golden

F — The CertainTeed three-way

Only shoot if the rep can be there. Worth a phone call this week to make it happen.

DAN 6.1HERO — THEME 05. The sisters, Taylor, and the CertainTeed rep on site looking at the same wall. The only frame in the film where the whole partnership chain is visible at once.GoldenLong lens
DAN 6.2Sample board being turned over between them, hands and color chips in macro.MacroDiopter

Two people in work clothes standing together on site, relaxed and mid-conversation — **Danvers, Sequence G** — observed, not directed. The best proof of “strongest relationships” we will get all shoot. Ref: Clif Bar, “2nd Responders.”

G — The meal

They're genuine friends with the branch team. This is the single best available proof of “the strongest relationships in the industry” and it will die instantly if we direct it. Give them 45 minutes, available light, one long lens, and stay out of the room. This is the Clif Bar “2nd Responders” register from the moodboard.

DAN 7.1Wide of the table from across the room, held long. Let the conversation run.ControlledLong lens
DAN 7.2Singles on laughter — real laughter, caught, never prompted.ControlledLong lens
DAN 7.3Phone face-up on the table between them lighting with a branch text. The texting relationship made visible in one macro.MacroDiopter
DAN 7.4Hands, plates, the ordinary furniture of people who eat together often.MacroDiopter

H — The payoff, late light ● MOVED FROM THE DELETED 9/25

These four were a Friday morning under the old plan. With 9/25 now travel-only they have to land in Thursday's golden hour, which makes the back half of 9/24 considerably tighter than it looks. Wrap the meal on time.

DAN 8.1Finished-home details: a door closing, a porch light coming on at dusk, mail in a box, a swing set. The payoff images for “a home,” and the closing beats of the film.GoldenMacroDiopter
DAN 8.2ASK EARLY. A family in one of the completed homes. Needs permission and a release well before we land — and now there is no second day to arrange it on, so this has to be set up from Richmond, not on site.Golden
DAN 8.3Salem / North Shore texture — older housing stock, the region's character. Best grabbed on the 9/22 scout evening instead, if that light shows up, because Thursday is now full.Golden
DAN 8.4Last aerial window. If Wednesday's sunrise hero move didn't land, this dusk flight is the only retake — and it will not have sunrise light or sunrise air. A partial mitigation, not a replacement. See flag 10.GoldenDrone

A man's face in close portrait, downcast, warm single-source light — **Hunter** — the register for the CEO: same treatment as the tradespeople, not a boardroom. Ref: Red Wing, “Wall of Honor.”

Hunter Lansing

NOT YET SCHEDULED — SEE FLAG 01

The CEO carries the narrative spine of every version of the script and currently has no shoot date on the filming schedule. Sections 1, 3 and 6 cannot be finished without him. Half a day covers it.

HUN 1.1Direct to camera, still, dark controlled background. The Section 6 commitment — “not the biggest, not the loudest, the most trusted.” Long end, centered.ControlledPortrait
HUN 1.2Second setup in a warehouse or at a counter. The script says “I started in the warehouse” — shoot him where that's literally true.Controlled
HUN 1.3His hands. Same macro treatment as the contractors and the associates — it puts him in the same visual class as everyone else in the film, which is the entire point of the script.MacroDiopter
HUN 1.4Seventy-year artifacts if any exist: an original sign, a founder's photograph, an early ledger. The heritage proof point the insights deck asks for and nothing else on the schedule covers.ControlledMacroDiopter
HUN 1.5VO recorded separately in a treated room, regardless of what we shoot. Three-plus minutes of narration should never come off a location track.ControlledAudio

Boots walking through dust, shot low and tight — **The spine** — SPN 03, and the kind of frame we need three times over. Ref: SickKids Foundation, “SickKids VS Dad Strong.”

The spine

SHOOT AT ALL THREE LOCATIONS

Nine shots the edit needs in triplicate. If a location wraps without these, we have a hole we can't fill in post. Put this list on every call sheet.

SPN 01The counter recognition beat — different associate, different customer, different energy each time.ControlledLong lens
SPN 02Contractor hands and associate hands, matched framing, for cut-matching across locations.MacroDiopter
SPN 03Boots hitting ground at the start of a day.GoldenMacroDiopter
SPN 04Forklift backlit in the bay door. Three versions cut into a rhythm.Controlled
SPN 05Delivery truck leaving the gate at first light.Golden
SPN 06Held ten-second direct-to-camera portrait of every principal and every named associate. Long end, face centered. Section 7 depends entirely on this.PortraitLong lens
SPN 07One hero product macro per location — decking in Raleigh, windows in Colorado, siding in Danvers. Together they cover the script's “every house sided, every roof secured, every window set” exactly.MacroDiopter
SPN 08The empty frame — branch before open, job site before the crew, street before the neighborhood. Section 1 lives on these.GoldenLocked off
SPN 09Weather that won't cooperate. Grab genuinely bad light the moment it appears, at any location, whatever else is scheduled. See flag 05.Opportunistic

03 — Format & optics

What the glass and the drone change

Both choices are made, and both narrow what's shootable in ways the shot list has to respect. The anamorphic package sets a hard floor on how close we can get; the drone sets a hard lead time on where we're allowed to fly.

Anamorphic — DZOFilm Arcana

1.5× SQUEEZE PRIMES · SONY FX6 (A-CAM) + FX3 (B-CAM) · DELIVERY 2.39:1

The right call for this film. Anamorphic gives us oval falloff on the portraits, horizontal flare in all that backlight, and a frame shape that makes a job site look like a landscape. It also costs us the thing this shot list leans on hardest.

Close focus is the problem — solve it before September 1
Anamorphic primes focus in feet, not inches. The shot list is built on macro batteries: chalk lines, bubble levels, caulk beads, barcode scanners, the Andersen badge, the CertainTeed stamp, a phone lighting up on a table. None of that is reachable on bare Arcanas. Bring a diopter set (+1 / +2 / +3, and a split for the foreground-to-background racks) and consider carrying one spherical macro for pure insert work. Shots below carrying the Diopter chip are the ones that need it.
Lock the delivery ratio before day 1
Sensor mode plus 1.5× squeeze determines the final frame, and it changes composition on every setup. A 1.5× squeeze doesn't land on 2.39:1 on its own — the sensor area we shoot and any crop on top of it are a deliberate choice, not a default. Decide it in pre-pro, set the monitors to it, and frame to it from the first shot in Raleigh, not in the edit.
Keep faces centered, and go long for the portraits
Anamorphic stretches toward the frame edges, most visibly on the wider focals. The held ten-second portraits (SPN 06) and the extreme close-ups carry the whole of Section 7, so shoot them on the longer end and keep the face off the edges where the distortion lives.
Stop down when the detail has to hold
Wide open is where the character is — use it for the interviews, the atmosphere, the empty frames. But spec sheets, product labels, the will-call ticket and the delivery paperwork all need to read. Stop those down.
Flare is a choice, not a default
Nearly every frame on this page is backlit, and a horizontal streak across a customer's eyes will cost us an interview answer we can't get back. Bring the matte box and enough flags to turn it off when we want it off.
Check the client monitor desqueezes
The budget carries a 24" daylight-bright monitor, and that's what circle S and Lansing will be watching all day. Confirm it can desqueeze at 1.5× before we travel, or the client village spends three days looking at stretched people and losing confidence in shots that are actually fine.
Verify the 120fps modes
High-frame-rate recording crops the sensor on these bodies, which changes the effective field of view and can affect how the anamorphic image circle sits. Test the slow-motion setups — the sawdust plume, the ratchet cinch, the siding lock-and-click — before the day we need them.

Decide in pre-pro: delivery aspect ratio, diopter package, and whether a spherical macro lens rides along for inserts.

Aerial — DJI Mavic 3 Pro Cine

HASSELBLAD 24MM + 70MM & 166MM TELE · PRORES / D-LOG · SPHERICAL

Used where it earns its place rather than as garnish. On this schedule that means three jobs: the scale of a community, a sunrise that establishes a region, and a rise-and-reveal over a treeline.

Where it earns its place
Community — DAN 1.1 and 1.3, the 158-home development, on the 24mm, low and slow. Sunrise — COS 2.1 on the Front Range, with a second run at it on 9/17. Rise-and-reveal — start low behind a treeline, ascend and pitch down to disclose the property; NC pine at RAL 4.10, the lot treeline at RAL 7.13, and the Front Range at COS 6.2 all suit it.
Use the tele cameras, not just the 24
The 70mm gives an aerial version of DAN 1.2 — the row of houses compressed, construction phases stacking behind each other. The 166mm compresses the Front Range behind Junior's neighborhood in a way no ground lens on this package can.
Airspace is the long lead item — start now
Colorado Springs is the hard one: the airport, Peterson SFB and the Air Force Academy all sit in the area, and the Academy carries standing security-related flight restrictions. Danvers/Salem sits near Beverly Regional, and Raleigh near RDU. Every one of these needs airspace authorization checked and filed well ahead, and any DJI geo-unlock requests submitted early. This is not a day-of problem to discover.
Don't fly over the crews
Operations over people are restricted, and our two best aerial days both have live crews under them — the siding crew in Danvers and a delivery in progress. Plan flight lines that keep people out from under the aircraft, or clear the shot and reset.
Colorado altitude will cost us flight time
Colorado Springs sits around six thousand feet, and density altitude at a warm sunrise reduces performance and shortens every battery. Budget more batteries than the schedule suggests. The revised plan helps here — with sunrises on both 9/16 and 9/17, split the priority moves across two mornings rather than trying to bank everything in one set of batteries on Wednesday.
The aerials are spherical — decide how they sit
The drone won't carry oval bokeh or horizontal flare, so cut against anamorphic ground footage it reads as a different voice. That's often a feature. Either lean into it deliberately or treat it in the grade — but decide in pre-pro, and shoot ProRes in D-Log matched to the main unit's frame rate and shutter so the colorist has the latitude either way.

Decide in pre-pro: airspace authorizations for all three markets, and whether aerials get a post treatment to sit closer to the anamorphic material.

04 — Light discipline

What shooting the best light costs us

Lansing sells exterior building products, so the film lives outdoors, and midday sun is unusable for the look in the moodboard. That's roughly five good hours a day — about 45 across nine days. This should drive every call sheet, with one large exception: in Raleigh, Eric's crews work 7:45a to 5p and barely overlap the good light at all, so that block is scheduled inside out. See the note there, and flag 11. Raleigh also runs ten-hour days, so a continuous day there reaches dawn or dusk but never both — which is why Wednesday and Friday run straight through and Thursday splits into two blocks with four hours off the clock between them.

A driver in a truck cab with low sun flooding through the windshield, heavy flare across the frame — **What we're protecting** — sun low enough to come straight through the windshield. Available for about 90 minutes twice a day, and not at all in between. Ref: Egert Milder, “Free Again.”

Window	What goes here	Why
Dawn – 9:00	All exterior hero shots, drone, arrivals, boots, driving, empty frames. In Raleigh this hour belongs to the empty site and to Eric alone — never to the crew, who arrive as it ends.	Raking light, long shadows, the entire moodboard register. Non-negotiable and non-recoverable.
9:00 – 16:00	Branch interiors, warehouse, counter, the diopter macro work, interviews in shade or indoors, platform screens	Overhead sun is flat and characterless outdoors but irrelevant indoors. Do the talking and the close work here.
16:00 – sunset	Second exterior block, the meal, interviews with sky behind, product in low sun	Warmer and lower than morning. Best window for the customer interviews, and where anamorphic flare behaves.
After sunset	Blue-hour branch exteriors, lit interiors, porch lights on finished homes	The answer to Danvers' branch problem, and the closing images.

05 — Before we shoot

Open items

Eleven things worth resolving with circle S and Lansing before the first travel day on September 1. Items 08 and 09 come from the format, 10 from the revised travel plan, and 11 from Raleigh's crew hours and day length. Ten and eleven are the two that change what the film looks like.

Blocks delivery

01 — Hunter has no shoot date

He carries the narrative spine of Sections 1, 3 and 6 in both script versions, and the filming schedule covers only the three customer blocks. The June production plan had “record VO with Hunter / capture footage?” pencilled into August with a question mark, and August is nearly gone.

Ask: can we get half a day with Hunter, ideally at a branch, and book the VO session separately?

Affects every setup

02 — Two script versions are still live

The concept doc ends with the open question of whether to run customer voices integrated, or keep everything in Hunter's voice and carry the customer stories visually. That's not an edit-room decision — it changes what we shoot. The customer-voice version needs sync interviews that stand alone; the Hunter-only version needs each customer sequence to read completely without a word from them.

Ask: assume we shoot for both. Every customer gets a full interview and a silent sequence that works on its own. Worth confirming so the client isn't surprised by the day's pace.

Accuracy

03 — Junior isn't actually on LansingNOW

The participants document is explicit: the marketing team believed he was on the platform, and he is not. The current script draft has him saying he places orders from the job site on LansingNOW. That puts a claim in a real customer's mouth that isn't true, in a film whose entire argument is that Lansing is more trustworthy than its competitors.

Ask: either change the line to what Junior actually values — ease of ordering, and Lansing sending someone who understands his altitude problems — or shoot the platform at the branch, attributed to Lansing rather than to him. Sequence D is built to cover both.

Handled on our side

04 — The Danvers branch doesn't photograph well

Noted in the participants doc, and it's the branch attached to our biggest customer story. Day 2's approach is built around it: tight, low, backlit, faces over architecture, blue hour for anything establishing. Raleigh's branch covers the wides.

No action needed from circle S — just don't promise Lansing a beauty shot of Danvers.

Schedule risk

05 — Three September trips, mostly exterior

Nine shoot days across three weeks, weighted to dawn and dusk exteriors, on the Atlantic coast in the back half of hurricane season. The revised plan redistributes that risk rather than removing it: Raleigh's 9/4 became a full day, and Colorado gained a genuine second morning on 9/17. Danvers went the other way and is now the thin one, with two shoot days and no spare light.

Ask: what's the fallback if we lose a morning in Massachusetts specifically? Worth agreeing now whether a lost day is made up, dropped, or absorbed — and note that the script's “weather that won't cooperate” line means bad weather is footage, not just a problem.

Paperwork

06 — Releases we don't have yet

Eric's crew. The DiBiases' siding subcontractors. Everyone at the meal on 9/24. The homeowner in Colorado if we shoot through their new window. Any occupied home in Danvers. And the disabled neighbor whose porch Eric built — that story needs her consent before it goes anywhere near a cut, even as a spoken anecdote.

Ask: who's sending releases ahead, us or circle S? Several of these people won't be identified until we're on site.

Watch in the edit

07 — Runtime, and now aspect ratio

The Hunter-only script timed at 3:15 read at a pace that leaves room for visuals to breathe. The customer-voice version adds three more verses and a closing chorus on top of that. Either the narration gets thinner or the film gets longer than an anthem should be. The June plan also plots social campaigns in November — and a 2.39:1 anamorphic frame crops to vertical very badly.

Ask: what's the target length, and is there a social cutdown? If there is, we either protect the center of frame on key shots or shoot dedicated vertical, and both need deciding before Raleigh.

Blocks coverage

08 — Anamorphic close focus vs. a macro-heavy shot list

Roughly a third of the shots on this list are inserts measured in inches — a bubble level, a caulk bead, a barcode, a phone lighting up on a table. The Arcanas can't reach any of them on their own. This is entirely solvable, but only with kit we have to book before we travel, and it affects all three trips equally.

Ask: add a diopter set to the package, and decide whether one spherical macro lens rides along for pure insert work. Every shot carrying the inverted Diopter chip depends on it.

Lead time

09 — Drone authorizations, Colorado especially

The single most valuable shot in the film is an aerial, and two of the three markets sit in airspace that needs paperwork. Colorado Springs is the difficult one — the airport, Peterson SFB and the Air Force Academy are all in the area, with standing security-related restrictions around the Academy. Danvers sits near Beverly Regional and Raleigh near RDU. Any DJI geo-unlock requests take time to come back.

Ask: confirm who is filing authorizations and start now. If Colorado turns out to be unflyable, we need to know in August so the sunrise can be re-planned from the ground rather than lost on the morning.

New — schedule

10 — The Danvers hero aerial now has one morning

The most valuable shot in the film is DAN 1.1 — the unbroken aerial travelling bare framing to housewrap to mid-siding to a finished home with a car in the drive. It is the only image on the entire schedule that says “a neighborhood, a community, a home” in one take, and it replaces the scripted time-lapse in Section 6.

Under the previous plan it had two mornings. Under the revised plan 9/25 is travel-only, so it has exactly one: sunrise on Wednesday 9/23. That is coastal Massachusetts in late September, on a drone that needs airspace authorization and calm air, over a live construction site. Fog, wind, or paperwork that hasn't cleared and the film loses its Section 6 pull-back with no way to recover it. The dusk flight at DAN 8.4 is a partial mitigation at best — wrong light, wrong air.

Note the asymmetry: Colorado now has two sunrises for a shot that matters less, and Danvers has one for the shot that matters most.

Ask: can we hold Friday 9/25 morning as a weather hold and move travel to the afternoon? Even a three-hour window restores the second attempt on the single highest-value shot in the film, and it costs one flight change. If that's not possible, we should plan and budget time for a ground-based version of the same progression as a backup.

New — affects the look

11 — Raleigh's crews leave at 5, and the light never overlaps them

Eric's crews work roughly 7:45a to 5p and will not stay later. Sunrise is 6:52, sunset 7:44. Their day and the film's best light overlap by about half an hour at each end and not at all in between, which is why Thursday splits — it is the only shape that reaches first light and golden hour on the same date.

The hero moment is safe: Wayne and Eric are two people who can both come back at 4:30. What Raleigh will not have is a wide, beautiful frame of a crew working in raking light, the kind Colorado and Danvers hand us without being asked. The nearest we get is the first half hour of each morning — Wednesday from 7:45, and Thursday's RAL 5.1. Everything else with a crew in it is close, tight and flat by necessity. The edit should expect that rather than discover it.

One smaller consequence: Friday reaches the branch opening or the branch closing but not both, so the blue-hour bookend is gone and the opening keeps the day.

Ask: which of Eric's sites is unoccupied, or which homeowner is comfortable with us working until 8:00pm on the Thursday and arriving at 6:00am? That answer decides where the hero moment happens and needs settling before the call sheet is cut.